My mother died a year ago between Christmas and New Year’s. I’ve thought about her often and that song from the musical “Rent” keeps reappearing: “How do you measure a year? In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee? In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?” How do we measure a life? […]
Lakes Region Weekly opinion
Guest Column: Today’s America is unrecognizable
President Trump tweeted Dec. 30 about a website called Africa World News that recognized him to be the Africa World Man of 2020. This website is not much known in Africa. In fact, it may not be even physically located in Africa. The president saw it; it said something good about him, he tweeted it. […]
Mainewhile: Let go of outrage
There is something so fantastic, so inspiring about the start of a new year. I mean, I know that in purely scientific terms, Jan. 1st is just another day. But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like the moment for fresh starts, new beginnings, like the whole world is a blank slate just waiting […]
Guest column: Red Cross grateful for Mainers who support its mission
As one of the longest and most challenging years of our lives draws to a close – with the promise of a vaccine offset by the gravity of staggering infection rates and devastating loss of loved ones – we would like to take a moment to reflect on the amazing resilience of our Red Cross […]
Here’s Something: Predictions from the all-knowing Magic 8-Ball
When I worked at Current Publishing, a family of weekly newspapers covering southern Maine before the company was sold in 2015 to the Forecaster family of publications (which is now owned by MaineToday Media), we had a fun newsroom tradition of asking the Magic 8-Ball to predict events for the following year. Reporters and editors […]
Mainewhile: And then there’s the pie
Hey everyone, how were your holidays? I am willing to bet they were a bit weird, probably not at all the way they usually are, or the way you wanted. I missed my family, I missed the board games. I even missed the ritual of trying to get comfortable at night in the near-tropical heat […]
Life Unwound: Resolve to simply be still in 2021
New Year’s Resolutions? Oh my, not again. Every year. And every year they fail because we (or maybe I) resolve to do something in the future. In 2021, I will finally (fill in the blank) lose those last 5 pounds. I will … I will, I will. What if we resolve to do something that […]
Mainewhile: Time for GOP to ‘bell the cat’
My grandparents were Republicans. My mom’s parents. I actually don’t know what party my father’s parents claimed. But mom’s parents were staunch and proud Republicans. Technically, my mom was, too. When she and my dad married, they flipped a coin to decide who would register with which party, each agreeing to choose one so they […]
Guest Column: Trump order to pull troops out of Somalia a green light for terrorists
On Dec. 4 President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Defense to withdraw troops and assets out of Somalia by early 2021. The U.S. has been in Somalia directly or indirectly since the war on terror was announced by President George W. Bush. The main objective of the U.S. was preventing Somalia from becoming a […]
Superintendent’s Notebook: Keeping schools open
RSU 14 has not been spared from the recent increase in COVID-19 cases that have been experienced across the country and in our state. Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen an upward trend in the number of cases within our district. While our overall case number has been smaller than other districts […]